Matron! the children of whose love, Each to his grave, in youth hath passed,And now the mould is heaped above The dearest and the last!Bride! who dost wear the widow's veilBefore the wedding flowers are pale!Ye deem the human heart enduresNo deeper, bitterer grief than yours.Yet there are pangs of keener wo, Of which the sufferers never speak,Nor to the world's cold pity show The tears that scald the cheek,Wrung from their eyelids by the shameAnd guilt of those they shrink to name,Whom once they loved with cheerful will,And love, though fallen and branded, still.Weep, ye who sorrow for the dead,

Ay, this is freedom!--these pure skies Were never stained with village smoke:The fragrant wind, that through them flies, Is breathed from wastes by plough unbroke.Here, with my rifle and my steed, And her who left the world for me,I plant me the red deer feed In the green desert--and am free.For here the fair savannas know No barriers in the bloomy grass;Wherever breeze of heaven may blow, Or beam of heaven may glance, I pass.In pastures, measureless as air, The bison is my noble game;The bounding elk, whose antlers tear The branches, falls before my aim.Mine are the river-fowl that